Abhi Kolpekwar, VP & General Manager, Digital Verification Technologies at Siemens EDA met with me at #DAC2026 to provide the big picture on smart verification tools, something they call Questa One. Their verification tools are infused with AI to improve productivity on projects like SoCs, 3D IC and chiplets. Abhi shared… Read More
Author: Daniel Payne
Questa One Updated at DAC 2026
Rise Design Automation at DAC 2026
AI was everywhere at DAC 2026, so I stopped by the booth of Rise Design Automation to chat with Ellie Burns to hear what’s new this year. Ellie shared that Rise DA has added a new AI-powered flow to go from specification to a High Level Synthesis (HLS) model, to a RTL model. The reason for using a HLS model is to gain much more simulation… Read More
Tuple Technologies at DAC 2026
At #DAC2026 I met with Vamshi Kothur at Tuple Technologies to see how their cloud infrastructure products help IC design teams get their chip designs to market more quickly without the overhead of big IT and CAD teams. Tuple was founded in 2017 and has grown to about 45 people, headquartered in New Jersey. The challenge of using complex… Read More
Siemens and NVIDIA tout Agentic AI
Siemens has EDA tools and flows, NVIDIA has AI infrastructure, so what happens when these two companies collaborate? I’m at DAC 2026 and all the buzz this year is Agentic AI, so an came out on Sunday evening about how semiconductor and PCB design flows are being improved by this teamwork. Amit Gupta from Siemens and Timothy Costa from… Read More
Webinar: Faster Design Spec to Implementation using IP-XACT
As SoC design flows grow increasingly complex, IP-XACT has become a cornerstone standard throughout the entire development lifecycle: from architecture specification to design assembly and verification. Its growing adoption is reflected in the standard’s continuous evolution, from the 2009 release through 2014… Read More
What’s New at the 2026 DAC Exhibits
The most common question that I get each year at DAC is, “So, what’s new?” When I reviewed the exhibitor list I was pleasantly surprised to see how many EDA, IP and AI companies were attending that I didn’t know about. Here’s just a quick preview of what to expect in Long Beach from July 27-29. I’ll… Read More
Library Characterization gets a Boost from AI
The semiconductor industry creates increasingly complex SoC and chiplets using lots of IP and all of that IP needs to be characterized at the cell level. As we design with 3nm and 2nm nodes, the sheer volume of data required for accurate static timing analysis (STA) is greatly increasing. Modern design flows rely on characterized… Read More
Complex PCB signoff challenges
Many complex PCB designs have high data-rate signals like USB, PCIe, DDR and HDMI which call for more thorough verification methods to ensure compliance plus mitigate any signal integrity, power integrity and EMI/EMC issues. Siemens has a methodology that uses automated rule-based electrical verification with an EDA tool,… Read More
Formal Verification Best Practices
How do I know when my hardware design is correct and meets all of the specifications? For many years the answer was simple, simulate as much as you can in the time allowed in the schedule and then hope for the best when silicon arrives for testing. There is a complementary method for ensuring that hardware design meets the specifications… Read More
Functional Safety Analysis of Electronic Systems
Safety engineers, hardware designers and reliability specialists in safety-critical industries like automotive, aerospace, medical device and industrial automation use FMEDA (Failure Modes, Effects and Diagnostic Analysis). ISO 26262 compliance for ADAS, braking systems and ECUs require FMEDA in the automotive sector.… Read More
Verification IP proves essential for PCIe GEN5